The explosion on the side of the tower was the cue for which Hart had waited. She settled the butt of the Conner firmly against her shoulder and sighted in. Fifteen pounds of pressure on the trigger ignited the propellant. The grapple gun kicked into her shoulder as it sent its alloy missile two hundred meters across the gap between the towers.
The missile struck cleanly and buried its head in the concrete wall. Moving quickly, she attached the carry line to the tension wire and to the takeup reel. She hit the go button and rechecked her gear as the winch reeled in the thin line and dragged the heavier weight-carrying wire through the pulley on the attached grapnel and back to itself. When the load-bearing wire returned, she attached it to the anchored winch. She slipped the wheels of the pulley slide between the now-parallel strands of wire, snapped the cover down tight, and attached the safety wire. Reversing the winch, she tightened the line and tested the grapnel’s grip. It stayed firm at four times her weight, so she slacked the tension back.
The gunfire from within the residential level, though nearer, was barely louder than the increasingly sporadic noise from the plaza. There was no time to waste.
Hart sat on the coping and got a good grip on the handle bar of the pulley slide. She pushed off with her feet and started on the slide down to Hawthornwaite Tower.
Glover felt the tremor in the building. He didn’t know what it meant, but he felt sure it wasn’t a result of the ruckus at plaza level. The source of the vibration was somewhere above the level he was on.
“What was that?” Neville asked fearfully.
Glover didn’t bother looking at the old fool.
“We must tell Hyde-White.”
He may be dead already, Glover thought. He found himself wondering if that would be a bad thing, and after a surprisingly short moment of indecision, decided it would be. The fat old man was still necessary if they were to achieve their goal of restoring the land.
Barnett’s office didn’t offer the full range of surveillance monitors available to the security desk in the main operations center, but the telecom controls allowed an operator to route input through the telecom itself or one of the two wall screens. Glover took advantage of the access and demanded data on the status of the GWN floors. The computer showed no contact with the security systems on those floors. The condition was flagged with an immediate response request that had gone unanswered, since the building security forces were engaged in the battle on the lower levels.
Clearly, the Circle was under attack. The apparently coincidental actions were obviously planned, designed to separate the members of the Circle. It had been cleverly staged. Glover suspected the enemy’s goal was to isolate the members of the Circle and eliminate them individually. It was a clever strategy, but one he would not allow to succeed.
So far, the only direct thrust against a member of the Circle was the assault on Hyde-White’s residence. That would be the enemy’s major thrust, barring more attacks to come. Whatever the case, the Circle needed to combine their strength as much as possible.
As he reached his decision, the office door slid open to admit a disheveled Gordon. His face was fixed in an angry frown as he swept the room with his gaze. The narrowed eyes lighted on Glover and he strutted up to the archdruid.
“What the devil is going on, Glover? I was enjoying a nice quiet evening preparing for the next ritual and then all bloody hell starts breaking loose. First, Barnett stops by my flat and informs me there is some kind of row going on downstairs. Then, there’s a bloody great explosion that shakes the whole building. Is it the shadowrunners again? You must have gotten some of them, since one of their bloody aircraft went tumbling past my window—” Gordon stopped suddenly in the midst of his tirade. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
Glover didn’t need to ask to know Gordon wanted to know what, if anything, had happened to Hyde-White. Bel’s blistering face! Does no one accord me my pride of place as archdruid? Glover stifled the thought. The land came before any questions of dominance, and the needs of the land would not be met if the enemy succeeded. The foremost need was to end the current threat to the Circle.
“He is in his residence, Your Highness. Neville and I were just on our way there.”
Gordon didn’t see the surprised look on Neville’s face, and his own words drowned out those of the old druid.
“Then I’m going with you. I must know if he has been hurt. Those shadowrunners almost killed him before. If he’s alone, he’ll need our help.”
Glover shook his head as he stepped past Gordon and grabbed Neville by the shoulder. He hustled the former archdruid toward the door, saying over his shoulder, “There’s no need for you to go, Your Highness. Sir Winston and I will deal with any problem that might have arisen.”
He might as well have saved his breath. Gordon fell in behind them, and his bodyguards behind him. The parade lasted all the way to the lobby, where Glover stopped in front of the GWN shaft. Gordon’s constant babbling about Hyde-White’s safety almost made Glover fumble the security code that called a car.
Glover shoved Neville into the car as soon as the doors hissed open. He turned to insist that Gordon remain behind, but before he could speak the man brushed past him and entered the car. Realizing argument was useless and time was passing, Glover entered the car himself. The two bodyguards crowded in behind him. Glover tapped in the code for Hyde-White’s floor. The doors slid shut and the car began to rise.
After only a few seconds, the car lurched to a stop.
“Power’s still on,” observed one of the guards. “Must be a security check.”
“Are you sure you entered the right code, archdruid?” Neville’s tone was unusually catty for the increasingly timid former archdruid.
“It was correct,” Glover replied. He didn’t bother to hide his annoyance.
“Well, call security and get this elevator moving again,” Gordon ordered. “Hurry! He needs us.”
Glover snapped open the panel covering the emergency comm unit with more than the necessary force. The cover rebounded from the wall to rap him sharply. He cursed as the edge jarred his hand with pain.
“’Tis evocative, but hardly likely,” a voice commented from the speaker. The comm screen glowed to life with the image of a white-haired, male elf. “Good evening, archdruid, Your Corrupt Highness. Ah, Sir Winston, I’m very glad you’re here as well.”
“Who are you?” Gordon asked belligerently.
Sudden suspicion bored in on Glover. “What do you want?”
“Much cooler, archdruid. As to what I want, shall we just say that I hope you’re as cool in hell. Going down.”
The elevator began plummeting. The initial lurch of car threw its occupants off balance. As Glover recovered he could see fear etched in the faces of his companions. Even Gordon’s bodyguards were afraid—their reinforced bones would not save them from a forty-story plummet.
“No need to bother with the emergency brake,” the elf said jauntily. “It’s disconnected.”
One of the bodyguards slammed the button with his fist anyway. As predicted, there was no response. The guard slammed it again and again, denting the surrounding panel with the force of his blows.
“Do something, Glover! Save us!”
Gordon’s voice was shrill with panic. Glover blocked it out and concentrated. Raising his personal protection spell only took the archdruid a moment—a moment in which the elevator car gathered speed in its downward rush. Glover knew maintaining the protective spell would make other magic difficult, but he was sure he would need the safeguard.
Glover raised his arms above his head and spread them. He focused his energy and blew the roof from the elevator car. Fluorescent panels, structural members, and supporting cable volatilized. The sound of the car’s downward passage no longer muffled, a rushing sound filled the room.
Gordon grabbed Glover’s shoulder, dragging down one arm. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
“I’m leaving. The land needs me.”
“What about me? The land needs me, too!”
“There are others of royal blood.”
Glover struck the grasping hand away and pressed his palms together at chest level, fingers pointing out. He rotated his wrists until his fingers pointed up, and the elevator car dropped away. He remained floating in the shaft.
The decker’s frustrated cursing joined the screams of Gordon, the howls of the bodyguards, and the despairing wail of Neville. The din grew fainter as, driven by his will, Glover shot up the now-vacant shaft.
Sam watched as an arcane bolt caught the last of the three drones. Its armor bubbled and darkened. With a burst that sent ceramic shards in all directions, the drone exploded, its ammunition cooked off in the magical heat.
A fragment whizzed past his head, scoring his cheek before its tumbling flight buried it several centimeters deep into the wall behind him. He cried out from the sudden pain.
Hyde-White turned to face him. Red-rimmed eyes bored into his own.
“So it is you. You should have heeded the warning, Samuel Verner, You’ve only brought death upon yourself by coming here.”
“Don’t be so sure, monster,” Sam bluffed.
The druid laughed, a deep booming sound. “Monster? Is that any way to describe a person who only seeks the well-being of his fellows?”
Hyde-White’s reaction puzzled Sam. The savagery of his fight with the drones had been unexpectedly replaced by a calm, and somehow sinister, playfulness. Sam didn’t know Hyde-White’s game, but every minute the druid talked gave him a chance to think of something to do. Unfortunately, every minute also increased the chances that the druid would get reinforcements.
“Your deeds speak loudly enough of your nature. For all that you look like a man, you’re not human.”
Hyde-White sighed. He looked around for a moment, then sauntered to a chair that remained mostly intact and threw himself into it.
“You had me fooled for a moment. I suppose I should have known better. I have been an initiate of my magical tradition for more years than you have walked this wounded earth. It was ridiculous to even entertain the thought that you might have penetrated the mask. I expect I was misled by your potential.”
Sam was confused by Hyde-White’s ramblings.
“You look so perplexed. It’s quite a wonder.” The fat man chuckled. “Since your death is inevitable now, the mask doesn’t matter anymore. Shall I let you see the truth? You won’t like it, and I suppose you might even find it a little frightening, which is all to the good. Fear adds a wonderfully subtle flavor.”
Hyde-White stood up again and stretched languidly. The stretch seemed to go on beyond the bounds of his flesh. He grew taller and slimmer. His arms lengthened, as did his legs, and the clothes covering his body changed to become a white pelt. Wrinkled, liver-spotted hands widened and darkened as fingers elongated into taloned digits. His facial features melted and re-formed into a bestial visage.
The thing that had hidden in the shape of Hyde-White looked down at Sam and smiled a carnivore’s smile. Like a stage magician signaling a completed trick, he flourished his hand down his new body and said, “You see, I haven’t been human for decades.”
Sam stumbled back from the divider behind which he had crouched, and bumped into a wall. He straightened up, letting the wall take some of his weight. Otherwise, he feared his knees would buckle.
The stench of decay and corruption emanating from the furred apparition was almost overpowering. Sam had expected the smell after his invasion of the sanctum, but he hadn’t expected to see this. Like the odor, the being’s silhouette was familiar from his troubled dreams and frustrated attempts to enhance his magical power. He had seen a similar creature when they’d raided the Circle’s murder ritual. Both Willie and Dodger were right and wrong.
Hyde-White was a wendigo, but he was very much alive.
“You were the Man of Light.”
It was the wendigo’s turn to look confused. “The what?”
“The one who blocked my path to the totem realms.”
“Ah. You use the past tense, implying you have breached the barriers I set in your mind. This is unfortunate. When I touched your astral form on the Solstice, and learned who you were, I sought to save you from yourself. You have been very persistent, as I should have expected from one with so strong a will. Perhaps I was not so foolish to worry about your ability to pierce the mask.”
Sam shuddered as the wendigo spoke. All lingering thoughts that the Man of Light was something he had dredged from his own subconscious vanished. His mind had been violated, his memories subverted by the wendigo. He felt sick and revulsed. He felt hatred.
“You bastard! I’m not a toy for you to play with. I’m a man, you godless, soulless beast! You fragged with my mind just to frighten me away from the power I needed to stop you.”
“Stop me? A pup like you?” The wendigo laughed. “That’s rich. But then, she said you had a strange sense of humor.”
The muscles in Sam’s face went slack. He felt chill all over as he remembered his not entirely strategic reason for selecting Hyde-White as the first target.
“Janice,” he whispered.
“Of course, Janice. You knew she was here, didn’t you?” The wendigo paused to study Sam’s expression. “I see you did. So it was she who motivated you to come after me. So much for noble motives. It does always seem to be kinbonds that motivate the hunters. I, of all people, should not have forgotten the power of that draw.”
Indignation fueled Sam’s anger. “How dare you call yourself a person? You’re a murderer, an eater of human flesh, and a corrupter of minds. You have forfeited any claim of humanity. God as my witness, you have forfeited your right to life.”
“What right have you to judge me?” The wendigo pointed an accusing finger at Sam. “You are of the blood of man, a scion of the long line of corrupters of the earth itself. The human race has fouled its nest since its infancy. Humanity is the true despoiler, and I am relieved I am no longer a part of that desecration. Were you able to understand your place in nature as I do mine, you would see the truth.
“By blood, I am born of the earth and I act as my blood directs. By temperament, I have responded to the atrocities your precious humanity has visited upon its collective mother, and have learned to call the corrupted spirits of the earth. I will see the vermin of humanity scoured from the face of the planet they have defiled. I will turn the corruption back upon the real evildoers. All you need to do is look around yourself to see I speak the truth. If you were truly moral, you would join my crusade.”
Sam felt the tug of the wendigo’s words. He, too, hated what man had done to the environment. He felt his despair and frustration curdle into rage over the thought of the betrayed trust. Then, he remembered the filthy feel of the wendigo’s previous presence in his mind and shouted. “Liar! You twist the truth to suit yourself, and I won’t fall for it. You’re the corruptor, the seducer, the defiler, and the despoiler. You’re evil by nature, and I will destroy you.”
The wendigo let out a low growl through clenched teeth. Then his lips closed down over his fangs, and he smiled.
“If I am evil, what of your sister?”
“I won’t let you hurt her.”
“Hurt her?” The wendigo laughed. “I have no reason to hurt one of my own. You are her past, and I am her future. She no longer belongs to your world, but to mine. Forget her.”
That was something Sam would never do. He felt guilty enough over how little he had accomplished in finding her. “Where is she?”
“She is safe from your misguided attentions. When Glover told me of the disturbance at ATT-Multifax, I thought it best to take precautions.”
“What have you done with her?”
“Brought her into the fold.”
“No!”
“Oh, yes.”
“NO!” Sam screamed again. He threw himself away from the wall and summoned his magic. Howling the words of Dog’s song, he poured his will into the effort of summoning a spirit. As soon as he felt a presence, he demanded service of it.
A luminous mist rose from the floor. Streamers of mist floated from the walls to join the cloud beginning to swirl in the space between Sam and the wendigo. The mist thickened, becoming almost liquid in density, and poured upward to form a shape as if filling a mold. The last of the vapor joined the hulking shape, and the whole thing became more solid, taking on the texture of poured concrete.
The floor groaned under the weight of the manifested building spirit. Between its wide, humped shoulders there was a knob that might have been a head. Two pits of darkness opened in the knob, and Sam felt the spirit’s attention settle on him.
The spirit’s stare unnerved him even more than the realization he had succeeded in summoning it. The spirit’s intensity, underlaid by hostility, scraped stainless steel fingernails on the chalkboard that was the inside of his skull. The spirit was insistent; it wanted his orders, for only by discharging its duties could it leave the physical plane.
“Destroy the wendigo,” he told it. “End the blight on the city.”
The spirit turned away abruptly. Spreading its arms, it advanced on the wendigo. Each step sent tremors through the floor.
Sam had expected that his enemy might show some fear at this sudden manifestation of power. He was disappointed. The wendigo began to vocalize. The sound started as a deep rumble in the massive chest and occasionally burst forth in a feral growl. The stench of putrefaction increased as the wendigo also spread his arms wide.
The spirit lumbered forward and raised one blocky, fistless arm to smash its victim. The wendigo stood his ground. His only action was to convulse his outstretched fingers closed into fists.
The spirit froze as pain flared in Sam’s head. The mystic bonds by which he directed the spirit tattered and tore. He tried to re-form them, but they slipped through his grasp.
Across the room, the spirit turned. The smooth, seamless lines of its form had become more jagged, and its facade was pitted and marred. Like lurid tattoos, graffiti and slogans of violence defaced its surface. It stepped toward Sam. Portions of its outer covering flaked away as it moved. It stalked toward him, leaving footprints of garbage and sludgy residue.
The wendigo gloated. “A poor choice, puppy shaman. Cities are one of the great blights that man spreads across the earth. Know now, if you had not already discerned it for yourself, that Blight is my totem. I have embraced the toxic defilement of the earth to turn it back on the source of the pollution. This cold, concrete tower has no true hearth. By its nature, the spirit you have summoned is more my servant than yours. All you have done is given me the tool for your own destruction.”